Did you know that starting in Windows Vista and Server 2008, Microsoft includes native support for IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) and it is enabled by default. IPv6 is the new computer address protocol that will eventually replace IPv4 which is currently the most popular standard by 97+ % of all traffic.

Google and others report that the Internet already has ~3.5% IPv6 traffic. Most of which the users do not know about since Microsoft has it turned IPv6 communications stack on by default in all versions of Win7 and Win8 and they make turning it off increasingly difficult.

IPv6 not needed currently in Windows 7 and 8 - Just extra traffic - No value!

Tony Fortunato says - Enabling IPv6 on your pc does nothing if your routers aren’t supporting it. Some applications come with it built in regardless if you have IPV6 disabled in your stack. You need to turn it off everywhere unless you are actually using it. Less then 4% of world traffic is IPv6 and some of that comes from the fact that Microsoft forces both IPv4 and IPv6 to be on!

It is not click simple as you will see! If you do not know what you are doing Please ask for help!

Here we will show you all the extra traffic that the dual IP stack causes for no reason and how that affects your ability to communicate efficiently and safely.

For this article we will focus on how to turn off the dual stacks in Win7 however Tony says that Win 8 is about the same. I will check on that and if not Tony or I will write another article on the differences!

You will see that Win7&8 are different in the stack setup and in the Win8 turning off the IPv6 stack is a bit more difficult but the internet traffic savings alone is worth the effort.

First – Many say that having dual stacks running is no big deal, well we captured just IPv6 traffic and it causes up to a 15% increase in your traffic or packets sent during internet communications. Not only does this slow down your internet access it uses up CPU cycles and slows down your computer’s internal timing and efficiency for no reason, as IPv6 is still a long way off from being deployed. Processes like name resolution may provide inconsistent results if it gets results based on IPV6 or IPv4

Here is just a small sample of the extra packet traffic caused by having the IPv6 communications stack on.

As you can see just in the first second there are 4 packets sent totaling 400+ bytes of useless communications data. There are no responses since there are no IPv6 devices to talk to or listening. The average user is on the internet for at least 2-3 hours a day most much more, so let’s say that in 3 hours your IPv6 stack will send an average 9 to 10 Million bytes that are not doing anything! This is a minimum as there are times that the rate of bytes will go up.

Tony Fortunato, one of my fellow writers on WWW.LoveMyTool.com , will soon be posting an article on some of the problems he has run into with IPv6 ready servers and security policy issues with this auto deployment that is not needed.

Over a simple connection to www.google, the IPv6 traffic was several million bytes of data for no reason? Why, well the big internet people want IPv6 to be deployed as it will cost trillions of dollars and give significant control over to the ruling bodies, companies and governments but it will give us lots of new address space. Right now we are surviving on NAT or Network Address Translation and yes it is a pain and does not allow for all the control that the governments and vendors want to have. Read my article on IPv6 - http://www.lovemytool.com/blog/2014/04/ipv6-we-need-it-but-will-i-see-it-deployed-in-my-life-by-tim-the-oldcommguy.html to see the complexity of the basics of IPv6.

So let’s turn off this bothersome and burdensome stuff in your Win 7 –

Unlike previous Operating Systems, you cannot disable IPv6 by disabling the protocol on your network interfaces alone. While that will disable the protocol for the interfaces the loopback and tunnel interfaces will still have it enabled that can cause problems with applications. The proper way to disable IPv6 is to disable via the registry and through the adaptor setups.

If you are not familiar with this process or are afraid that you may mess up your computer get a professional to help you. If you are an advanced user you will have no problem in completing this task and make your internet time more efficient!

First let’s turn off the IPv6 at the Network Adaptor Level –

Go to Control Panel – Network and Internet – Network Connections and select Local Area Connection. Right click and choose properties.

Now clear the check mark on Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) or you can uninstall.

The click Configure and then the Advanced tab.

Now click on the TCP Checksum Offload for IPv6 and change the value to disabled. Do the same thing for all the IPv6 lines. This is not necessary but I want to leave nothing to chance in turning off this wasteful action item.

Repeat this for each connection type including wireless!

Close out the Control Panel!

Now go to your windows tab and where it says Search Programs and Files –type in Regedit and press return.

Windows will ask if this is OK –say yes and now we are looking at the Registry Edit area.

- Name the new value “DisabledComponents”, all one work and without the quoted, press Enter to continue.

- Right-click the new value you created (DisabledComponents) and select “Modify”. - Set the value to “FFFFFFFF” (8)(be sure “Hexadecimal” is selected under the “Base” section, now click OK!

The Decimal value should show as 4294967295.

Go to File on Top and exit Regedit!

All that is left is to restart your computer and IPv6 will be disabled on all interfaces Wifi and direct connections.

Now you will not be wasting your valuable internet access speed and efficiency and computer clock times on something that does not exist, yet.

If you want to check that IPv6 traffic is gone use Wireshark to see what is happening on your network and you will see that IPv6 traffic is gone.

This is what it looks like with no IPv6 traffic, just usable IPv4 traffic!

**NOTE - All the traffic through a Garland Technology TAP - This is a no SPAN zone!

The average computer lasts for about 5 years, we will NOT see IPv6 launched in the next 5 years as the standard! Just remember that if you do need IPv6, all this can be reversed if you do it correctly!

**Note - Special Thanks to Tony Fortunato and Chris Greer for acquiring some of the traces and for testing the process. Great Analysts, Super Writers and Incrediable Friends!

I wish everyone Great Success with Less Stress! My Best = The Oldcommguy™

Comments

Why and How do I want to turn off IPv6 in my Win 7&8 machines? (by The Oldcommguy)

Needless IPv6 traffic in Windows 7 & 8 is turned on by default!

Why do I want to turn it off and How do I turn it off!

Did you know that starting in Windows Vista and Server 2008, Microsoft includes native support for IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) and it is enabled by default. IPv6 is the new computer address protocol that will eventually replace IPv4 which is currently the most popular standard by 97+ % of all traffic.

Google and others report that the Internet already has ~3.5% IPv6 traffic. Most of which the users do not know about since Microsoft has it turned IPv6 communications stack on by default in all versions of Win7 and Win8 and they make turning it off increasingly difficult.

IPv6 not needed currently in Windows 7 and 8 - Just extra traffic - No value!

Tony Fortunato says - Enabling IPv6 on your pc does nothing if your routers aren’t supporting it. Some applications come with it built in regardless if you have IPV6 disabled in your stack. You need to turn it off everywhere unless you are actually using it. Less then 4% of world traffic is IPv6 and some of that comes from the fact that Microsoft forces both IPv4 and IPv6 to be on!

It is not click simple as you will see! If you do not know what you are doing Please ask for help!